Original scenario by Steven P Petrick

Year 179

Year 179 was a good year for the Federation as they were able to drive the weakened Klingon formations back to the original borders. Here, however, a new problem was encountered. While it was obvious that offensive action was necessary to force the Klingons to the peace table, there were no reliable sources of information on just what the best routes into the Empire were. It was obvious that the few known routes (mostly those used by the "Federation Express" company before the war) would be easily defended. The Federation resorted to sending a series of probing forces to locate weaknesses in the Klingon lines that could be exploited to outflank the major defenses and to find areas within their defensive sphere where logistics points could be established to support future operations. Because the areas behind the Klingon borders were "unknown" territory, a Federation intelligence officer had labeled them in accordance with the standards applied by ancient map makers on virtually all worlds. Many of the Federation probing forces would find that demons did indeed dwell there.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5; two Federation and three Klingon.

Terrain: Asteroid field (P3.1), the center hex of each cluster of asteroids contains one large asteroid (P3.4). Large asteroids are located at 0405, 0907, 0813, 0421, 1025, 0629, 2004, 2508, 2114, 1822, 2524, 2028, 3204, 3808, 3612, 3422, 3725, & 3527.

Federation: CLC (A) and NCL+ (B) enter the map on turn #1 from the 42xx map edge, heading E or F, speed 6, WS-III as modified by the probing rules below.

Klingon: D7W (C), F5k (D), and 2x G1 (E, F) set up in accordance with the ambush rule below, heading at player’s option, speed 0, WS-III.

LENGTH OF SCENARIO: The scenario continues until all forces belonging to one side have been destroyed, captured, have disengaged, or until the end of turn #20.

Map: The map is fixed. Any unit leaving the map has disengaged and cannot return. The Federation units can only disengage from the 42xx map edge. The Klingon units can disengage from any map edge.

Shuttles and PFs: No shuttles have warp booster packs; the Klingon PFs have warp booster packs.

MRS shuttles may be purchased [up to the limits in (J8.5)] as commander’s options.

The two G1s are standard G1s and were brought to the area by the D7W.

Each ship can purchase additional or special equipment as commander’s option items up to 20 % of its combat BPV. See (S3.2) for details and exceptions. Note that whatever is spent here counts as victory points for the enemy.

All drones are medium, speed 20. Fast (speed 32) drones are available for purchase as special drones.

Each drone-armed ship can purchase special drones up to the historical racial percentages as part of the commander’s options.

Refits: The Klingon F5 has the K refit; the D7W has the mech-link refit. The Federation NCL has the plus and AWR refits. All units have received their applicable Y175 drone rack refits. Note that the G1s have NOT been refitted in any way. No other refits are available.

Probing: The Federation is conducting this mission to find a suitable area to establish a logistics point for some future operation. As they are not expecting immediate contact, they operate under the following restrictions:

The Federation ships believe that they have not been detected by the Klingons. For this reason, the Federation ships cannot initially have overloads or begin loading overloads or have any shuttles prepared for "special missions" (suicide, scatter-pack, wild weasel) until they contact a Klingon unit under the provisions of (D20.2). They have detected a Klingon force moving in their direction, but intend to be gone before it arrives.

To determine a suitable logistics site, they must gain 10 points of lab information on each large asteroid in the field. Probes and probe drones cannot be used for this function. Admin shuttles can be used, but can only gain the necessary information by physically moving into the large asteroid’s hex, at which point they automatically collect 10 points.

Ambush: The Klingons are aware of what the Federation is attempting to accomplish from prior operations of this sort. They arrived in this area of the field before the Federation ships and established themselves in ambush using hidden deployment (D20.0). The moderator will determine within which cluster the Klingon players will set up in before play begins.

The Klingon players can then set up in any hex covered by the asteroid cluster selected with any initial facing.

At their option, the Klingon players can place up to three "stationary-ballistic" scatter-packs, two from the D7W and one from the F5K. These shuttles must be within 10 hexes of at least one Klingon ship and are also hidden under the conditions of (D20.0). Note specifically that the 10-hex limit does NOT require these to be in the same asteroid cluster as the Klingon ships. Study rule (F4.4) carefully as the SPs will release at the pre-set range, and if no Klingon ship has fully-activated fire control at that point, the drones (except type-VI) will immediately go inert.

At their option, the Klingon players may place up to six transporter bombs on the map within 10 hexes of their ships. These T-bombs must be purchased under the Commander’s Options and are the T-bombs normally available to the ships, i.e., they may not purchase six more in addition to these. Note that these bombs are NOT required to be in an asteroid hex as they are hidden by their very nature, and that more than one can be in any single hex. Dummy T-bombs cannot be deployed at start, but can still be beamed out during combat to confuse the Federation.

The Federation players win if they can successfully collect the necessary information on all 18 large asteroids and disengage with both ships. Any Federation unit still on the map at the end of turn #20 is destroyed by Klingon reinforcements. The Klingon players win if they prevent a Federation victory.